Twenty Four Hours
by Obi the Kid
Summary: Dean wonders and worries on Sam during his brother's 24 hour sleep fest in 'Pac-Man Fever.'


**TITLE**: Twenty-Four Hours

**AUTHOR:** Obi the Kid

**RATING: **PG (for mild swear words)

**SUMMARY:** Dean wonders and worries on Sam during his brother's 24 hour sleep fest in _'Pac-Man Fever.'_

**DISCLAIMER:** The characters of Sam and Dean Winchester and the world of _Supernatural_ do not belong to me, nor do I make any profit from this story. Any typos/errors are all mine!

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Twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours and counting.

Yeah, this ain't healthy and it sure isn't normal. Sam went down for the count yesterday at noon and hasn't re-surfaced yet. He's alive. I've made sure of that, checking on him every couple hours. He's quiet too. Too damned quiet if I'm any judge. I even did the old pocket-mirror trick, holding it under his nose to see if there was breath; it's how shallow his chest was moving.

What else can I do? A hospital is out of the question. What the hell would I tell them?

Cas is in the wind, and he's already said Sam is beyond his healing and there ain't no way I'm trusting another angel to get anywhere near my brother. So, it's me and it's Sam and it's him saying he's fine and good and okay and can hunt. It's me insisting that he's not

a hundred percent or any percent good enough to be out there fighting monsters and watching my back. He's not even capable of watching his own back.

If needed, I'll test him when he wakes up. Not that we're going anywhere. Right now, things are playing out on their own and without our interference. There's a Hunter's APB out on Kevin. If we go trouncing around who knows where for Kevin with Sam in this condition, we'll make perfect little human shaped targets for Crowley and crew. No. Sam needs his rest. I can help him get his strength back. At least it's what I'm clinging to because it's the only lifeline I've got right now. Two trials down. One to come. If we even make it that far. For now, we wait. We wait and Sam sleeps and rests and gets better and in the end things will work out…somehow. In one royally screwed up way or another, things always do…eventually.

But there's a limit to that, right? The number of times Sam and me can defeat death, return from Hell or Purgatory or that so-called 'normal' life. Sam still wants out.

I know he does. And I want him to have it. More than anything, I want normal for him. I want both of us to be able to sit down one day, kick back and not have a single worry about demons or angels or vampires or ghosts. Sam got as far out as I've ever seen a hunter get, from his description. But in the end, the life sucked him back in. And now, here we are one more damn time, one more damn battle for our lives and potentially the lives of all of humanity. It gets old, these fights…our lives. And we don't get any younger. Just get piled on with more pain and suffering and bitterness and frustration and anger and every other negative emotion out there. We're the damn poster boys for unhealthy emotion.

And still we keep fighting.

We must be honestly and truly insane. Or suicidal.

And speaking of, there is that easy way out to all of this. For Sam and me. We could end all of that pain in a quick few seconds and for once let the world fend for itself.

I considered it at one time. Briefly. When we'd lost Bobby. It didn't go much further than that though. And thinking harder on it, I suppose someone does need to keep Heaven and Hell in check. How two _humans_ have managed it for so long, I can't begin to say. But we keep them guessing and we keep surprising them just when they think they've got the key to their screwball version of a hostile takeover. There go those damn Winchesters, in the way of world domination…yet again.

I just hope we have enough between us to do it one more time.

I found myself in Sam's room again. Hour twenty-five. With dark shadows circling not only his eyes but half of his entire face, he was more restless this time and I set a hand on his arm. It was hot to the touch, but for now, I looked past the fever to make sure his mind was settled. Last thing he needed were nightmares added to the condition he was suffering.

"Easy, Sammy. Just rest. You're home, in your bed. Safe. I swear it, little brother."

There was quiet after. I felt a sad smile come on. As kids, I'd been able to bring Sam out

of nightmares sometimes. As we got older though, we both insisted we could handle our own…or better yet, just flat out denied we were having them. We still did. Hell. I never said were the two brightest bulbs on the planet. At least as he slept, Sam couldn't deny it or push me away.

There was something to be said for unconsciousness.

With Sam okay, I went back into our main room, map room, library, whatever we were calling it, with a six pack of beer from the fridge and tried to keep my worries for my brother at bay and hoped that nothing came our way that required any decisions about leaving the house for a hunt. That would be one argument that Sam in his current condition would lose, if I had to punch him in his face to get the point across. I'd done it before. If it was the only way to keep him as safe as possible, I'd do it again.

I guess time would tell…and hour twenty-five creeps past. I hear movement. It appears that Sammy has finally risen from his own personal black hole. He looks like hell and he looks like he feels like hell. I know for sure that he does, no matter how many times he tosses an '_I'm fine, Dean' _my way.

And I'll be damned if he's leaving his house under my watch.

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The End


End file.
